


Control, Alt, Save

by pastelserpent



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Angst with a Happy Ending, Enemies to Friends, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Gaming, Hogwarts, Hogwarts Era, Light Angst, Romantic Angst, Slow Build, Slytherin, implied happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-16 06:14:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29945712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pastelserpent/pseuds/pastelserpent
Summary: It had been a lot of work securing a place at Hogwarts, especially as it was such an elite institution for gaming and e-sports, but I had somehow managed, and now I was in my sixth year competing for an even more competitive school ahead of finishing my seventh year. Yay me. “y/n!” someone’s voice broke my trail of thought, and I turned to look behind me to see Theo walking quickly along the corridor. “you left your journal,” I winced as he stopped a metre away from me, his hand outstretched holding my yellow gaming and personal journal, “thanks,” I mumbled, adjusting my grip on the backpack strap on my shoulder while reaching out for the book. He passed it to me easily, “I guess you decided to stop?” I nodded, grasping the book tightly to my chest, “you didn’t read it, did you?” he shook his head, “I wouldn’t,” and then with a small smirk on his face, “I doubt there’s anything interesting in there, we play the same games and I know more than you do,”*1st person perspective** hope you like it*** very brief unplanned hiatus explanation in notes
Relationships: Theodore Nott/Reader
Kudos: 1





	Control, Alt, Save

Hogwarts as a school of gaming was one of the highest ranked in the world, it was also one of the most secluded, which supposedly improved the game play of the students, but as I sat swearing at a screen, I was beginning to doubt this. “lose again?” Blaise teased from beside me, he had been successfully winning every game he played all evening, and it was really beginning to get on my last nerve, “what gave that away?” I retorted sarcastically, tossing the avatar of the winning team on the screen a dirty look. 

“why don’t you just take a break?” Pansy asked from my other side, she had tossed aside her cat ear headphones as she instead tapped in the last move, smirking as she won the game. “then I have to practice double tomorrow,” I grumbled reaching up to angle my own cat ear headphones into a more comfortable position, “so? If you aren’t in the right headspace it won’t be any easier,” I sighed glancing down at my hoodie, ‘I play to win,’ had been splashed across it in large detail and that was the ethos of Hogwarts, no one enters a game with intention of losing. I most certainly didn’t. 

“it won’t,” I grumbled resignedly after a moment reaching for my water bottle, and taking several greedy mouthfuls – which might have helped that I had taken them in game, “exactly, so take a break, no one is gonna have a go at you,” I sighed again, glancing down at the count up clock on the corner of my desk – all students were encouraged to time how much gaming they did per day – and today my clock was barely registering more than two hours, the expectation being a minimum of four – with the average game being a minimum of half an hour, but too many quick losses had altered that.

“professor is going to, if I fail the next assessment,” Blaise yelped from the side of me, both of our eyes immediately flicking over to him, “finally,” he cheered, fist pumping the air, I sighed, casting a look back to my screen, where the winning avatar was still dancing and the words ‘loss’ had been painted across the screen in pixels. Irritably I clicked off it, “one more game,” I stated decisively, ignoring Pansy’s eye roll, and turning my head back to the screen, pressed play, locking in my character. 

Thirty minutes later, I slammed down the mouse, pushing the light up keyboard away from me, “I'm calling it,” I grumbled signing out of my account and shutting down the PC that I had been working at, Pansy shot me a concerned glance which I shook off. “it’s fine, I’ll see you in the dorm,” she offered a small smile, as I gathered together my things, pulling my oversized sweater down over my denim shorts, and thigh highs, I pulled back on the UGG boots that I had walked down in, and reached for my enamel pin covered backpack. 

Slinging it over my shoulder, I pulled my headphones off my head, and placed them around my neck, placing the dangling cord into my hoodie pocket, my eyes roamed the desk, noticing the clock, I groaned picking it up and dumping it in the front – heavily embellished, pin covered – front pocket, “if I left anything just bring it to the dorm,” I mumbled to Pansy, pushing my circular glasses onto my head in order to rub my tired eyes – staring at a screen all day really could give you square eyes. 

She nodded, offering me a smile, before I could move Blaise tapped me on the shoulder and I turned to him, he stood up – automatically towering over me – and pulled me into his chest, “get some sleep, we can practice tomorrow,” I nodded as his grip crushed me against him. For such a skinny guy you’d think he’d be slightly less forceful. “mhmm,” I mumbled carefully extracting myself from his grip, he smiled, ruffling my hair slightly before easing himself back into his black gamer chair. 

Giving the pair – and Draco who had just returned with multiple coffee cups – a wave, I disappeared out of the basement room and along to the main corridors of the school. It had been a lot of work securing a place at Hogwarts, especially as it was such an elite institution for gaming and e-sports, but I had somehow managed, and now I was in my sixth year competing for an even more competitive school ahead of finishing my seventh year. 

Yay me. 

“y/n!” someone’s voice broke my trail of thought, and I turned to look behind me to see Theo walking quickly along the corridor. “you left your journal,” I winced as he stopped a metre away from me, his hand outstretched holding my yellow gaming and personal journal, “thanks,” I mumbled, adjusting my grip on the backpack strap on my shoulder while reaching out for the book. 

He passed it to me easily, “I guess you decided to stop?” I nodded, grasping the book tightly to my chest, “you didn’t read it, did you?” he shook his head, “I wouldn’t,” and then with a small smirk on his face, “I doubt there’s anything interesting in there, we play the same games and I know more than you do,” I rolled my eyes, it was true that we competed within the same games, creating an unnecessary and uncomfortable tension between us.

Each year group had the same selection of games on offer, and then each house had one mandatory game, but the rest were up to the students to decide, and as he had correctly stated, we had unfortunately chosen the same set of games, which we competed in daily. With him usually beating me. He wasn’t wrong about him knowing more than me, he knew all the tips and tricks, but what he didn’t know was that I had been trying to get better, or at least had been until I had hit a new kind of gaming block. 

“thanks for getting to me,” I mumbled sleepily, I didn’t hate Theo, but out of Slytherin, there were definitely other people I would rather speak to – and game with or against. He was harder to talk to about anything than anyone else in the house, and even more reserved when it came to gaming, always keeping his cards close to his chest, he also only typically gamed with Draco and Blaise, leaving the rest of us to come up with our own gaming partners and trios. 

Pansy had become my partner for gaming, with us occasionally teaming up with the girls in our dorm for wider competitions, it was always the same in strategy, Theo, Blaise and Draco would team up, and usually kick most of Gryffindors off the scoreboard, while me and Pansy would work to kick a few Ravenclaws off too. And then it would come down to Slytherin versus everyone else, and that was fine, but competitions inside Slytherin weren’t, they were difficult, strenuous, and could go on for literal hours, with no one wanting to lose.

“well thanks for getting this back to me,” I muttered waiting to see who would move first, realising he wouldn’t, I sighed hoisting my backpack up further onto my shoulder, all the while gripping my notebook tightly, before turning around and continuing down the corridor towards the common room, knowing he would go back to the gaming practice room that we had been working in. 

Sighing I entered the common room, and ignoring all the younger years, scrambled up to the dorm room. For some stupid reason the Slytherin common being in the basement hadn’t been enough, and so the rooms had a dismal view of the black lake, sighing I glanced at the waves which lashed angrily against the window, what a mood. Unlike many of the other Slytherin girl dorms, ours was lighter and brighter, with each bed decorated to be similar to the person it belonged to, even Pansy – who everyone outside of Slytherin thought of as cold hearted had hints of pink dotted around her bed – not that anyone outside of Slytherin – or indeed our dorm would ever find out. 

My particular pink item of choice was simple and the least ostentatious thing I had been able to find when I had gone dorm room decoration shopping – a peach pink throw draped over the bottom of the bed. My bed featured considerably pinker than Pansy’s – though admittedly not by much, sighing I walked over to it, dumping my backpack on the floor, tugging off my hoodie as I grabbed my comfortable clothes, and walked towards the bathroom, with plans of a long hot shower.

Having showered, I sighed settling on my bed, the next game test would be in a couple of weeks, and I had to beat Theo, losing to him simply wasn’t an option. It wasn’t like I could even practice against him as he was always so unwilling to game with anyone other than Draco and Blaise until the competition/test itself. Sighing I reached for the small games console that I used to play on as a kid – and had bought with me for such occasions, and logged into an old game that I had loved to play, I clicked through most of the pre-game spiel, and instead headed on into the game, tapping away until I had successfully completed multiple puzzles. 

A small icon popped up, alerting me to an incoming request, ‘gamer365’ rolling my eyes I clicked away from it, creeps always lingered in the game. Shutting off the console, and dumping it down on my bedside I reached tiredly for my notebook, Theo had said he hadn’t read it, and I sincerely hoped that was the case. The journal documented everything from game strategies to my deep-most thoughts, it wasn’t something I wanted other people reading, and I really needed to learn to stop leaving it lying around. 

The door was thrown open and Pansy walked – or rather stalked in, tossing her bag onto the floor beside her bed, before flopping on top of it, “bad match?” she made a deflated noise from where she had buried her head in the pillow, “Pans,” I called over to her, she looked up from the pillow, sitting on the centre of the bed and running a hand through her now messy cropped black hair.

“I'm fine, bad game,” she grumbled, “Theo said he got your journal back to you,” I nodded silently holding it up, “are you ready to compete against him again?” she asked pulling off her own hoodie, and tossing it aside. “I have to be,” I mumbled flopping back against my pillows, “we all know he’s gonna rank top of the year again, and I'm gonna be somewhere in the middle,” she sighed glancing across at me, “are you gonna go and practice when everyone else is gone?” 

I shrugged, it was true that all students had access to the game room at basically any time of day or night, and after two AM was always a sure-fire way to secure the room to yourself. “maybe, I need to practice more before tomorrow,” tomorrow would be another practice for the class ranking, after which me and Blaise would inevitably sit for a few more hours, tapping away at the keyboard while swearing. 

“it was pretty empty when I left,” Pansy stated, “did everyone leave after I did?” she nodded, “pretty sure only Draco, Theo and Blaise were still there when I left, and Blaise said he would be going to bed soon.” I thought over what she had said for a moment, I would have my headphones on anyway, so there was nothing to stop me from simply sitting at a desk and gaming for a little while, ignoring everyone else. 

“I might actually go and practice,” I stated scrambling off my bed, “I thought you said you were tired,” I shrugged, reaching for my backpack, and slinging it back over my shoulder, making sure to bury my journal at the bottom of the bag. “yeah, but what’s a couple of hours?” she shrugged flopping back against her pillows and assorted game related plushies, “I’ll be here if you need me,” I nodded, offering her a smile, before walking back out of the dorm. 

Why I thought late night gaming was going to help my sleep deprived brain, I had no idea, but it was better than sitting around doing nothing. With a sigh I re-entered the gaming room, and retook my seat, dumping my bag on the floor, I placed my headphones back onto my head and plugged them into the system, loading back up the game I had been playing. 

The room had indeed emptied since I had last been in it, with only a few PCs still emitting a bright light into the fairly dark room. Clicking on the light above my work station, I tapped the keyboard a few times, before reaching for the hairband around my wrist, and tying up my hair into a ponytail, the desks around me had all been shut down, with Draco clearly having followed Blaise up to bed. While my game loaded, I glanced around the room, noticing only a few people were still up, a couple of Ravenclaws, and a couple of Slytherins, turning back to the screen in front of me, I started my game.

It wasn’t until forty minutes later of swearing and furious tapping – my team had only narrowly won the game – that I realised just how empty the room had become, lowering my headphones off my head, and letting them fall around my neck, I glanced around the room. Only one other PC still had light emitting from it, not that I could see who was playing, turning back to my PC I sighed, gaming was a lot harder than people liked to claim it was – especially pro gaming. 

My eyelids felt heavy, and I supressed a yawn, physically jumping when someone rested a hand on my shoulder, my eyes snapped to the person who had made me jump. Theo. “didn’t you go to bed?” he asked reaching for Pansy’s chair, and settling in it, turning to face me; tucking my knees up to my chest, I angled the chair I was sat in, in his general direction, taking my headphones off and placing them on the desk beside me. 

“I did, but I need to practice,” he shook his head slowly, “you shouldn’t practice if you are tired, you won’t win,” I scoffed quietly, “as you like to remind me, it’s not like I win much anyway,” he sighed reaching for my mouse, and hitting save on the game results, before proceeding to shut down the monitor. “go to bed, y/n, you aren’t gonna do yourself any favours staying up,” I glared across at him stubbornly, “I’m not gonna win games if I'm sleeping,” he shook his head again, reaching for the backpack that I hadn’t seen him drop on the floor. 

“if you don’t get your butt off that chair, I will carry you the whole way back to the common room, and I don’t care who sees, so for your sake, get up before I do that,” I rolled my eyes, glancing back to my monitor which had powered down completely. Even with state-of-the-art tech, it would take another twenty minutes at a minimum to get my game back up and running, and ready to play, plus time to sort everything, I glanced back to Theo, “come on,” he was far more forceful than he should have been. 

I sighed reaching for my bag, “I'm only doing this, so you don’t try and carry me,” I grumbled standing up, and slinging my bag back over my shoulder, “fine by me.” he replied passing my headphones to me, I slipped them back around my neck, “why do you care if I practice anyway? We all know I'm not gonna beat you,” he shrugged, “someone has to make sure you don’t force yourself into a mental break down,” I remained silent as we slipped out of the gaming room and back towards the common room.

“I could just be being dense, but I still don’t see how that affects you,” he shrugged again, effectively killing the conversation the whole way back to the common room, once inside we split off without another word, and I walked up to the dorm room – which for once was still a hive of activity. “there she is!” Pansy squealed jumping towards me, “what’s up Pans?” she smiled passing me her latest portable device for gaming, “I beat the dungeon level finally!” I smiled glancing down at her game, 

“nice job,” she smiled taking back her console, and lying back on her bed, “did you get in some extra practice,” I nodded dumping my bag on the floor, before jumping back on my bed, flopping against the pillows. “how much more practice did you get in?” I thought for a moment before shrugging, it would be on my timer anyway, “not much, Theo came over and threatened to carry me back here if I didn’t get some sleep, so not really much but I win a player vs player game,” she nodded sympathetically, beginning to curse Theo’s name for me with all manner of insults. 

Smiling softly, I reached for my sweatshirt and a pair of leggings before walking into the bathroom to get showered. Blaise had promised me that we would practice tomorrow, and tomorrow was another day, which I would hopefully feel refreshed for, with that thought in mind, I re-entered the bedroom, and made my way over to my bed, dumping my hoodie on the side. I settled onto my bed, and under the duvet, before rolling onto my side and finally allowing my eyes to flutter shut.

……

My eyes opened to the sound of the waves bumping against the window rhythmically, despite our dorm being under the Black Lake, the mornings were fairly peaceful, with the waves only growing stronger later in the day. Stretching slightly, my eyes darted around the silent dorm room, realising no one else was awake, and I wasn’t about to go back to sleep, I slid out from underneath the covers on my bed, and made my way around the room, collecting some fresh clothes for the day. 

Having showered and changed into another oversized Hogwarts hoodie with a pair of leggings and trainers, I began tying my hair into a cute hairstyle. The dorm room was still silent as no one had woken up yet, and I doubted Blaise would be up for a little while. Sighing, I reached for my console and walked down to the common room, with it clutched in my hand, the common room, much like the dorm room, was silent. 

Slipping through the mess of papers that littered the floor and the various trailing chords from laptops on charge, I settled onto a sofa and promptly powered on my console, switching onto an easy race. “have you ever heard that there are times in the day where people don’t game?” someone asked from behind me, “they clearly don’t attend Hogwarts,” I replied nonchalantly continuing to focus on my game, “clearly not,” Theo replied sitting down next to me and watching the game from over my shoulder.

“did you want something, or do you just enjoy loitering?” I asked sarcastically keeping my eyes fixed on my game, “eh, loitering is pretty fun,” he remarked, fixing his own eyes to the screen, “I hear you and Blaise are going to be practicing today for the next class ranking,” I shrugged, “seeing as I'm still crap at the whole gaming thing, yeah we are.” he scoffed quietly, “I’ll help too, you need all the help you can get,” I shrugged keeping my concentration unmoved, “up to you,” he scoffed again but didn’t make any further comment. 

“why offer, Theo? Want to see that I'm still as crap as I was at the last test?” he shrugged, but similarly to before, kept his mouth shut, I shook my head with a quiet sigh realising I wasn’t going to get an answer from him and instead turned my whole attention back to the game. “if you keep over accelerating like that you’ll crash,” he stated from where his head was now rested on my shoulder, “yeah I know,” I replied unimpressed, 

“so why do you keep doing it?” I glared at him from my peripheral vision, “because I can’t get a standard acceleration,” he shook his head placing his hands over mine on either side of the console, his eyes fixed on the screen rather than my shocked expression, and began to gently move my fingers on the controller to be in a more balanced standard acceleration.

“that is how you accelerate and don’t crash,” he stated withdrawing his hands from mine, “why are you helping me?” he shrugged from where he was, “why not, Slytherin teams are changing for the next inter-house championship, and I want to make sure we have a strong team – a team that you are going to be on. Gotta make sure you know what you are doing across all games,” my head turned to face him, all but discarding the game, “what do you mean ‘changing’?” he shrugged, “apparently esports are unbalanced,” I rolled my eyes at his flippancy, “they are unbalanced, Hogwarts is the exception, most other gaming schools are male dominated if not only male,” he shrugged again. 

“anyway, they want to put together more mixed teams, and seeing as the teams are only singular same houses, that means you are likely to be on Slytherin’s team, plus any female team put together from the rest of the houses.” My eyes snapped over to his, “you mean they want to put an all-female team together to verse any other female teams and the already dominant male teams?” Theo nodded silently, I sighed, turning back to my console, “yippee.” 

He stayed silent for a while as I continued to play my game, only moving every so often to adjust his position on the sofa. Blaise’s arrival seemed to snap him out of his quietness for a moment, as Blaise flopped down on my other side on the sofa, “so you ready to practice today?” I nodded placing my console down as I finished my match and turned to face him. 

“Theo said they want to put together an all-female gaming team,” I waited for a reaction, and rather than giving me one, Blaise simply nodded, “several female teams I suspect,” my eyebrow rose silently. “don’t stress about it, you dominate in your game anyway,” I didn’t bother looking at Theo, knowing he would probably be smirking, “are we going to go and practice yet? I need to fix my setup before we game, I think that might be throwing off my ability to reach the keys fast enough,” Blaise nodded, 

“let me go grab my bag and then we can go down, I'm pretty sure they’re delivering food to anyone practicing this morning.” I nodded, watching as Blaise and Theo walked in the direction of the boys’ dorm, clearly Theo intended to keep to his word of improving my gameplay. I walked back up to my own dorm room, grabbing my backpack off the floor, with my journal still buried at the bottom, and then placed my smaller game console and water bottle into the bag, zipping it up, as I placed my headphones back around my neck. 

Meeting back up with Blaise and Theo, we walked back down in the general direction of the practice room, through the empty corridors as no one else was up to practice yet. Blaise and I kept up conversation the whole way down while Theo remained silent, keeping whatever thoughts he was having to himself. Entering the practice room, I slid back into my usual gaming chair, kicking off my trainers, and pulling my knees up underneath me as I began setting about sorting my set up. 

Theo slid into his usual seat the on the other side of Blaise and Draco, taking off my headphones I placed them on the desk, moving around my keyboard and mouse while my pc powered on. Theo and Blaise had a murmured conversation while I tapped away on my keyboard, loading up the game all the houses ended up playing against each other – one that was built on 5v5 tactics and choosing appropriate champions for said matches. 

“we’re doing 5v5 normal, right?” I checked, choosing to ignore the way Theo shot Blaise a look, Blaise nodded, as we each joined the game before opening it up to other members of the house to join. Placing my headphones back onto my head, I sighed to myself, Blaise knew I needed the training help, but I didn’t trust Theo not to relish in watching me struggle, even if I had improved vastly from the last time we had had to compete as a whole house. 

As soon as the game was loaded up, and we were inside ready to play – watching the minions start rolling out from the base, I lowered the mic on my headset to be adjacent to my mouth, listening to Blaise – as well as two other players from our house direct loudly, only Theo and I remained quiet as we entered team fight after team fight, attempting to get the objectives before the other team could. 

My improved set up made my reactions far faster, and I took great delight in being able to go to toe to toe with the players from the enemy team, as well as keep up with Theo, who despite not vocalising his surprise, had it written all over his face. A large part of me felt smug, if I could surprise Theo with how much I had improved, there was no way I wouldn’t be able to do well on the matches too. 

“good game,” someone from the other team typed in the chat as we destroyed their turrets, and won the game, “good game indeed,” Theo commented quietly on the mic after the other two players from our team had left. “you’ve got so much better,” Blaise commented as I removed my headset, and smiled across at him, “as they say, practice makes perfect,” Blaise nodded, clicking onto a different game to practice while I leaned back in my chair, flicking through the various files of games I had saved to my pc.

Theo stayed quiet once again, as I selected a new game to practice, “we might win the competitions if y/l/n has improved this much,” he commented quietly, and I pretended not to hear the surprise – or the harshness of his words about the previous (admittedly poor) performances that Theo had had the pleasure of witnessing. “aren’t you surprised Nott?” I replied, 

“can’t be nice underestimating someone so much that they then prove you wrong,” he chuckled quietly – a sound that sounded almost foreign on his lips, “I am surprised,” he agreed, “I'm surprised that you’ve improved so much, maybe you’ll be able to win against the other teams.” I rolled my eyes to myself, “in case you hadn’t noticed, me and Pansy don’t make a point of losing,” I shot back, opening up a simplistic game, shooting a look out the corner of my eye to look at Theo, who had reclined in his seat and ran a hand through his hair. 

“true, let’s hope you keep winning when you join Blaise, Draco and I,” I rolled my eyes again, there was of course clearly another reason for Theo wanting to come and ‘help’ Blaise with our practice session – to see if I’d be able to handle myself when we all ended up playing together in the next 5v5 house competitions. Having never been able to clearly pick out what Theo was thinking at any exact moment, I remained quiet, noticing how Blaise was either unaware of the discussion that had been taking place, or wilfully ignorant. 

“maybe you three should try watching me and Pans play, seeing as you seem so concerned that we aren’t good enough to keep up,” I shot back, it might have started as a semi-compliment, but Theo had mastered the art of getting under my skin, and the more he did it, the more I was inclined to be bitchy back to him. “maybe we should,” he replied, his voice was low, calm and even, and if anything that was even more infuriating. 

Rolling my eyes, I moved my mouse in quick movements to start up a new game, “I really wish you two would just get it out of your systems already,” Blaise complained from between us, “he’s not in my system,” I muttered back, “maybe if you were, the pair of you wouldn’t be at each other’s throats like this all the time,” Blaise stated flatly. “who says I want her to be?” Theo challenged, as I rolled my eyes, “you two are blind,” Blaise groaned, removing his headset, and running a hand through his messy hair, “whatever is going on between the pair of you, figure it out in time for house matches, I refuse to lose to Gryffindor.”

With that, Blaise put his headset back on, and I glanced past him to look at Theo who was trying fiercely to look at his pc screen and avoid meeting my eye. Rolling my eyes once more – they were getting more exercise than any other part of me – I turned back to my screen, “come on y/l/n, let’s go talk about this outside,” Theo stated, spitting the words out like they physically hurt his existence. 

“of course,” I mustered a fake smile, grabbing my lanyard off the side of my desk – which had my most important games and notes on it, before following Theo out of the gaming room and into the cold and empty corridors which smelt sweet from the kitchens. “right, so what did you want me to say?” I asked, standing a short distance away from Theo, enough distance that if I decided I wanted to lunge at him, my common sense should kick in before I did. 

After what felt like an eternity in silence, Theo finally began to talk, “I'm sorry if I made it seem like I think you’re a terrible gamer, you aren’t, and you deserve your place here as much as anyone else does.” my eyebrow rose silently, waiting to see if that was the most he would say on the matter, “you’re one of the best gamers here, and I haven’t always given you credit for that, for which I'm sorry,” I stayed silent once more. “you shouldn’t judge a book by a cover,” I stated after a moment, “and I find it annoying that you seem to treat me so much worse than many of the other gamers, Pansy and I dominate the house games and you know that, so I don’t get what your problem is.”

“yeah, I'm sorry about that too. I uh, I thought if I could tell myself you weren’t worth my attention, then uh, the feelings that had been growing would have disappeared,” a small smirk crossed my face, maybe the reason I hadn’t been able to pinpoint what Theo had been thinking – though difficult for others – was because I’d missed the most obvious reason for his behaviour. 

“maybe you should let your feelings grow a bit more,” I teased, “yeah I'm good not ‘crushing’ on someone,” he replied, emphasising ‘crushing’ like it was some form of dirty word, “hmmm we’ll see,” I replied, “we’ll see,” he shook his head, a smirk of his own forming. “maybe if you win the house cup with Pansy I’ll take you to that gaming tournament Blaise told me you wanted to go to,” despite how I was probably supposed to be angry at him, my eyes lit up. “you mean when,” he rolled his eyes, “fine, write the date in that journal of yours,” I smirked back at him, “it’s a date.” I pretended not to notice the small pink tint that rose to his cheeks, it would be a date if it was the last thing I did.

Control the game, alt the crap, save the happy ending.  
The end.

**Author's Note:**

> So hey everyone, thanks for getting this far on the story, I hope you liked it! I guess I should probably explain what's going on, at the beginning of 2021 I set myself a challenge to write 24 pieces of fanfic from Harry Potter, obviously I had been planning to put out a valentines piece but this sadly never happened. I got hit with some serious writers block and then in person school started once more - which has been a lot harder on me both mentally and physically, I'm sorry y'all had to wait so long for something else to be published, but I hope the wait was worth it - there are probably some spelling errors but I really wanted to get this out after so long of not publishing anything. Thank you to all of you who stuck around and waited, I really appreciate it more than I can say, and seeing people give kudos to my work has honestly been the reason for me wanting to come back and publish something - even if I end up bogged under school work again and on hiatus, I still want to achieve my 24 piece goal and continue to make you guys as happy as I can with my work. I've probably rambled enough already, but thanks for sticking around, see you on the next piece! have a nice day lovelies, thank you 💖


End file.
